


Candy Red

by Let_the_kids_techno



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Crash Landing AU, Language Barrier, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-04-30 02:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5147336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Let_the_kids_techno/pseuds/Let_the_kids_techno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat is sent to investigate Earth and study the humans. His ship crash lands and he's found by John, who's way more calm about this whole ordeal than he should be. Karkat is not pleased.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waking Up In Vegas (Earth)

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive me for this mess.

Karkat's whole body aches, his thinkpan swirling and churning with confusion. He's staring up at an endless sea of white. That doesn't make any fucking sense to him, because the last thing he remembers is slamming on the control panel of his ship, cursing and raving as the vehicle made its way way ever-closer to the green, green ground of some backwater planet.

Oh. He must have been fucking culled, and now this is what the afterlife was. Son of a mother-fucking grub.

Except, when he reaches out with his stiff, aching arm, his fingers make contact with some type of fabric. He tears it off of himself and sits up with a groan. He tries to stand, but can't. Everything hurts and his vision swims. When it clears up, he realizes that, no, he isn't dead. He’s alive, and he's in some type of hive. There are posters on the wall in a language he doesn't understand, the letters made up of odd angles and round edges, and it makes his thinkpan churn all over again. The Trolls decorating the posters are all hornless and pink-skinned.

Not Trolls. _Humans._

Then this must be the planet he was sent to look at, and under any other circumstance he'd be happy to have found it at all. But he doesn't know where he is and he doesn't who he's with, because this is obviously someone's hive.

As if on some fucking cue, the door opens, and a head of dark hair is thrust through the slight gap. It’s a human – that much is obvious. The human's face is pale, a creamy white color, with tiny brown dots covering its nose. His – and Karkat is going off on a hunch here and assuming it’s a male – eyes are a startling blue. The color of this planet’s oceans and Vriska's blood.

They shock him for a moment. Briefly, Karkat wonders if this human boy is a blue blood, a high-class human. The thought terrifies him. The boy must have seen Karkat’s blood, his dirty, mutant, candy-red blood. He's overcome with a horrible sense of dread.

The human says something, but Karkat doesn't understand. The human's language is so, so soft compared to Alternian. The mutant blood gets lost in the rhythm of it. It almost sounds like music.

The human enters the room, continuing to speak in his odd language. He's taller than Karkat, and gangly. Thin in a way that trolls aren't, his skin smooth in a way that Karkat has never seen skin look. Eventually, the boy comes over to sit on the bed. He reaches for one of Karkat’s arms, his pale, claw-less fingers curling around the bandaged arm. He’s smiling, and it’s a grin full of smooth, buck teeth. Karkat hates it. Karkat wrenches his arm free and tucks it against his chest with a growl. Who the fuck does this bone-bulge think he is, just up and fucking grabbing him?

“Don't fucking touch me, nook-face!”

The boy flinches back, as if burned. His smile falters, but doesn't fall. He hasn't understood. Karkat wants to scream. He wants to throw things. He wants to cull this fucking human and his too-wide grin.

He wants to go home and get away from this boy and his too-soft words. He wants to get away from those blue eyes and that pale skin. It’s wrong and it’s weird and he hates fucking _everybody_ right now.

He wonders if Gamzee is wondering where he is. Is he scared? Has anyone noticed he's missing? Fuck. How long has he been unconscious for? Are they...are they even looking for him?

The boy points to himself and says something, effectively snapping the Troll out of his stupor. He points to Karkat. Karkat thinks this human is a fuckass. The human once again points to himself and says the same thing: “ _John_.”

He points to Karkat.

This goes on and on until Karkat realizes – the human's name is John, and he's asking Karkat for his own name.

“Karkat,” He says, because he doesn't think the boy is going to stop until he gets an answer.

 _"Carcat_ "?” The human asks, and his consonants are wrong, too soft, not sharp in the right places.

“Karkat,” he says again.

“Karkat.” The human – John – says, and...and it's right. Karkat blinks. The pronunciation is slightly warbled, but it’s right. The tiny glimpse of his own language, even if it’s just his name, has his blood pusher tightening. Tears spill over his eyes and he quickly covers them with an arm.

John startles and makes an odd noise, Karkat doesn't know if it’s a word or not. The boy leaves in a flurry of too-long limbs and Karkat is alone. For some reason, that makes him cry harder.

John comes back with a cup full of some liquid that he hesitantly offers to Karkat. The troll takes it and smells it. Nothing. He takes a tiny sip. Water. He’s never been so relieved to have tasted water in his whole life. He finishes the glass and shoves it back into John’s hands.

“More,” he demands. His face is flushed and tear stained, not exaxtly in  a position to be making demands, but he doesn't care. John doesn't understand the word, but he seems to understand the gesture. He goes and comes back with more water, but doesn't give Karkat the cup when he reaches for it. The dark haired human points at the liquid inside and says, “ _Water._ ” The mutant blood assumes that’s the human word for it, but doesn't repeat it. He doesn't fucking want to learn this human language. He has no desire to stay on this garbage planet, and if he was able to walk he'd be fucking gone and back to his ship.

Only...Karkat has not the slightest idea where his ship is. He realizes with a pitiful sense of dread that in order to ask where his ship is, he’s going to need to communicate with John, and in order to do that he’s going to have to learn this bullshit language. He sighs hard and presses the palms of his hands hard against his eyes. _Breathe, Karkat, just fucking breathe_ , he tells himself, and forces his rage to cool.

“ _Water_ ,” he repeats. John fucking beams, smile a mile wide. He points to the object holding the liquid and says, “ _Cup._ ”

Karkat echoes him. John gives him the water.

It becomes a game for the human, pointing out things in the room, and having Karkat repeat them. Eventually, Karkat has the tiniest grasp of what the things around him are called. By the time the light fluttering through the curtains has dimmed, Karkat can ask two basic questions (“ _Water?_ ” and “ _Toilet?_ ”) and can thoroughly make John feel stupid just by saying his name.

The stone-heavy feeling of distrust hasn't lifted itself from his stomach, but some of the fear he’s been feeling has dissipated. The human is trying to help him, he deduces. John leaves him, and hours tick by. Karkat guesses he's sleeping. Thoughts swim though his thinkpan. The human has been...kind. The human has seen his blood, and hasn’t culled him on the spot. The human has taken him into his hive, bandaged his wounds, and sheltered him. John has only given him smiles, has been patient with his rages. Has treated him like someone with pale feelings would have treated their moirail.

Karkat doesn’t know why.

He doesn’t want to.


	2. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry I haven't updated lately. College is kicking my butt. I'll update more often, promise. Thank you all for the kudos and for your comments :') Glad you like the fic.

The glass shattering is an accident. Karkat is shaking from a nightmare, horror-terrors still lurking in his mind. Karkat isn't quite sure how long he's been stranded in John's fucking hive, but he's guessing it's been several days. He's been drifting in and out of consciousness the whole time, and the lack of recoupracoon is driving him deeper and deeper into nightmares.

Which brings him to the stupid fucking glass. He figures he knocked it over in his thrashing and now its laying in pieces on the floor of John's hive. Karkat curses and reaches for the fragments, but can barely tap a claw against them before his ribs start to ache. He huffs and throws himself back against the pillows. He hates being a fucking invalid.

“Fuck! I'm so fucking sick of this place!” He roars, the Alternian rolling off his tongue easily. It tastes like home.

The screaming draws in John. The human is huffing like he had sprinted the whole way, that god-damn look of worry clouding his face. Karkat hates it and he hates John too.

“ _You okay_?” He asks, and Karkat is ashamed to admit he understands.

“ _Yes_ ,” he says, but he can never get his words to sound right. Arms crossed tight across his chest, he looks away from the human.

“ _Oh! You....cup_ ,” John says, and there are words between ' _you_ ' and ' _cup_ ' but Karkat doesn't understand but he can assume.

John goes to the mess and picks up a shard and promptly drops it. He looks at Karkat and says: “ _Drop._ ”

Karkat rolls his eyes. “Yes, I dropped it, fuckass. Who else could have? A ghost?” is what he wants to say, but all he can properly say is, “ _Yes. I Drop_.” He fixes John with a scathing look. “ _John_ ,” he grits out. John seems to realize that Karkat was calling him an idiot in the only way he could.

John laughs and its loud, grating to his ears, stupid....musical. _Keep your shit together Karkat_ , he thinks, and mentally slaps himself.

John crouches down over broken glass. Careful, pale fingers pick up the glass fragments from the ground, setting them into his other hand gently. Karkat is assumes his human skin is as delicate as it looks. Karkat could squeeze the glass in his fist and barely feel a pinch. Humans are too soft, Karkat thinks, from their soft skin to their soft language.

John hisses, says something in a pained voice. Red liquid is dripping down his fingers, sinking into the fibres of the soft white flooring. Candy red. Its metallic smelling. Karkat's eyes go wide. _It's blood_ , he thinks wildly, _his blood is the same as mine._

The relief comes first, rolling over him like tidal waves. The part of him that was fearing John was going to cull him at any moment fades. Concern comes next, John's hand is slick with blood. Red blood. Kakat still isn't sure what the hemospectrum is like on this planet and part of him is worrying that it's the same as home, that John will get caught. The second problem is that the human is gripping his wrist and hissing in his human language like it's killing him.

Karkat doesn't know why he cares all of the sudden, but he _does_.

“ _John,_ ” he says, and his voice is lacking his usual snark, “ _okay?”_

John looks up at him with wide, blue eyes. The human is silent, for once.

Karkat moves despite the ache in his bones and the pulling of scabs. He stands, wobbly at first, and grabs John's arm with hesitant fingers.

John's skin is soft, smooth just like Karkat imagined. He turns John's hand, so pale against the dark gray of his own flesh, and looks at the cut. It isn't deep, just a tiny scratch. The blood makes it look much worse than it is. Karkat had though the human was bleeding to death.

“ _John!”_ He hisses and tries to portray the fact that he was worried and is now thoroughly annoyed with him in a single word. John seems to understand and pulls his arm out of Karkat's grip. The Alternian lets him go.

The human pulls a face, as if he was disgusted, and says “ _hate”._ Karkat nods, understanding, and sits back down on the bed. John points the the bright red liquid staining his pale skin, “ _Blood_.” And then, as an after thought, “ _Red.”_

“ _I hate blood,”_ John says firmly. He shudders.

And Karkat understands. Not just the words, but John's hatred. Maybe not for the same reason, or maybe it was. Maybe John was a mutant blood too, maybe John knew what it was like to hate the very life force of his body. Maybe John knew what it was like to have to hide from his friends, the people he trusted. Karkat's hatred of John is fading with each drop of candy red blood.

John leaves while Karkat is thinking. He hears the bathroom sink running and then the sounds of a box opening. John comes back bandaged and looking much less pale now that the red blood is out of his sight.

Karkat likes to think John understands what its like to be red blooded in a world with a hemospectrum keen on killing them.

" _I hate_ _red_ _blood_ ,” Karkat says, vehemently. He needs John to understand that he feels the same way.

John looks at him a little funny, but nods anyway. Karkat lays back against the pillows, and John settles down on the foot of the bed and talks. Karkat can't tell where one word ends and the other begins, but the sounds are becoming less foreign to him. Just days ago Karkat was cursing the entire existence of the human language and now he finds himself dozing off to it's softness.

Karkat doesn't know what's happening to him. When had this place stopped seeming like a curse? When had he given up trying to fight his way out of here. 

John keeps talking, but his voice softens.

Karkat dreams of blue eyes.


	3. Language

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got really long for some reason.

Karkat has lost track of how many day's he's been in John's hive. He thinks it's been at least six or seven. The days run into each other, each full of new words, and John, and this damn room. The incident with the blood is at least two days away.

He's been able to move with more ease, the pain in his ribs just a dull ache, and his cuts are nearly healed. John has been an attentive, if not idiotic, nursemaid. He hovers over Karkat, constantly talking and pestering him with food and water, when all Karkat wants to do is to be left alone and fucking sleep. The nightmares have been keeping him awake, and as much as he's loathe to admit it, listening to John blather on about who knows what is the only way he can get some peace.

It's a fucking catch-22.

Words come to him more easily now and John is happy to oblige all of Karkat's pointing. It's a particularly sunny day, and Karkat's nocturnal eyes still haven't quite adjusted to this earth's sun, when John tosses a book into his lap. It's full of colorful pictures and words in that strange alphabet that humans use. He can't understand a single word.

“ _No read, idiot_ ,”He huffs. He pushes it back into Johns hands with a roll of his eyes. John just laughs that stupid laugh of his and situates himself on the bed beside Karkat. John radiates heat, and he smells like those baked things with the sugar paste on them. Karkat stiffens when their shoulder's brush, but John doesn't even seem to notice.

“ _I'll teach you_ ,”John says. John doesn't seem to be that much of an idiot, because he completely over looks the words in favor of pointing at pictures and telling him the word. John is mind-numbingly patient with him. Karkat butchers pronunciation like he's getting paid for it. The vowels are too round, the consonants too soft. It's hard and Karkat finds that he'd rather buff his bulge with a belt sander than parrot back words to John, but it has to be done.

There are questions Karkat needs to ask.

The sun goes down, and Karkat's eyes nearly weep from sheer joy of no longer being strained. Johns voice is hoarse from talking. The human closes the book, looking satisfied with their lesson. Karkat's vocabulary has nearly doubled, and he has to admit it was a good idea.

 _“Hungry?_ ” John asks, standing. He stretches out his cramped limbs, arms above his head. His shirt rides up, exposing pale skin and an odd indent in his stomach. Karkat's mouth goes dry. He blames it on all the talking John had him doing.

“ _Yes_ ,” Karkat says and tears his eyes away from the human.

“ _Kitchen_.” John says.

Karkat recognizes the word Kitchen as one he just learned. He nods and rises to his feet. He hasn't explore much of John's hive, just the bedroom and the bathroom, and the oddest thing about it is that it isn't so different from Karkat's own. It feels good to stretch his legs, and he finds himself glancing about at all the decorations in the hive. Pictures line the walls, most are of John. Some are of John and another human that looks very similar to John. They both have the same blue eyes.

John catches him staring. “ _My dad_ ,” he says. Karkat vaguely remembers one of his teacher's on Alternia telling them humans aren't born as grubs, a weird thought, and are raised by their parents and not a lusus, another weird thought. He figures _dad_ means one of his parents.

Karkat nods.

“ _Your dad?_ ” John asks, and Karkat isn't exactly sure what he means by that question. Again, he curses his limited vocabulary. Karkat is used to being articulate. Back on Alternia he could insult anyone six ways to Sunday with out re-using a single word. Words for Karkat have always been a defence. Here on Earth his words are failing him.

John is looking at him like he's waiting for an answer.

“ _No dad_ ” Karkat says and John gives him a sympathetic look.

“ _I don't have a mom..._ ”And John looks distraught. There is a story behind that look that Karkat isn't exactly itching to learn.

 _Mom._ That must be the second parent.

“ _Me no mom too_.” His lusus couldn't exactly be described as a parent compared to human standards. Crab-dad was cool, but he only showed up to give him food back when he was a wriggler and not much else. Trolls raised themselves.

At this revelation the human gapes at him, blue eyes wide and his gape-hinge wide open.

“ _Alone?_ ”

The question stings. He is alone, here and back on Alternia. There's Gamzee, and Karkat would rather tear his own tongue out with a rusty fork than to pretend that Gamzee isn't there for him, but that was it. But not even Gamzee knows the colour of his blood. He's kept to himself for that very reason. If anyone ever found out the colour of his blood he'd be culled for sure.

“ _Yes_.”

 _“No,_ ” John says vehemently, “ _You have me._ ”

That does something to Karkat, something that makes his stomach flip. Here is someone who knows his blood colour and still took care of him. Not only that, but John is looking at him like he pities him. Karkat bites his lip until he tastes blood.

“ _Okay_ ,” He says, and John's resulting smile is brighter than that damn human sun.

John finally gets them to the kitchen and pours them both glasses of water. Finding food for Karkat has been a bit of a chore for John. There had been an incident with a white liquid called _milk_ , that his body rejected as soon as it touched his stomach. Meat has been safe, along with some plants. John rummages around in the fridge and grabs out several items.

Karkat's plate is eventually filled with thin slices of meat from a bag and those red plant things John had called _tomatoes_. Karkat finds them not completely horrible. Some other vegetation is added to the empty looking dish. John's plate looks significantly more interesting.

“ _Sorry,_ ” John says and gives him a sad smile.

“ _It okay John_.” Karkat shrugs and makes short work of the meat, his sharp teeth easily tearing through it.

They do their best to communicate, and Karkat has to admit it's getting easier. John talks and Karkat listens, but he finds that he can interject now and add his own opinion. To some extent that is. Their plates are empty, but John doesn't make any more to clear them away, just sits and ask questions that Karkat tries to answer.

“ _You have horns?_ ” John gestures towards Karkat's head and the troll moves his hair away to show him. John's face lights up. “ _Cool_ ,” he breathes. Karkat can't help but flush under the praise. John takes his hand and trails fingers across his forearm. John's skin is so soft, nothing like Karkat's own rough flesh. The touch is feather-light, and it's almost soothing.

“You humans are so soft,” he says in Alternian, mostly because he can, “how you managed to survive this primitive disdainful fuckass of a planet is beyond me. I really wanted to hate you, you know. But you John, are somehow not a complete nooksniffing idiot. I know your human mind can't comprehend a single word that I'm spewing right now, but I'm glad that if I had to crash my dumb-ass ship on this moronic planet of yours, it's you who found me.”

John is smiling like he doesn't understand a word he just heard and has decided on an emotion at random.

“ _Thank you John_ ,” He says, and he's missing words again, but this will have to do for now.

“ _You are welcome_ Karkat.”

And things are okay.


	4. Update

Oh my. I haven't touched this fic in nearly a year and wow I am so sorry. To everyone who has read this and commented and said such nice things, I thank you, sometimes just seeing those kind words have gotten me through a day. This story is not dead, I promise! In fact, I'll be uploading a new chapter tonight! 

Things have been wild for me this year with school and my engagement getting called off and I've been in a bad place, but I've gotten the writing itch back and I'm going to buckle down and finish this thing!

With much love and many thanks,  
Elliot


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Un-beta'ed as my previous beta is long gone. Please tell me if you see anything I might have missed!

 

Two weeks pass and the days get easier to keep track of after John shows him a paper board with squares and numbers on it called a _Calender_. The calender has pictures of _cats_ on it, and John tends to look at them like he wants to snatch them right out of the picture and squeeze them. Karkat thinks they're fugly.

 

Karkat learns.

 

He learns numbers and days and plenty of things about John. John likes tiny animals and sweet foods and terrible _television_ and even worse _movies_. John also likes making Karkat suffer through those terrible movies and television shows despite all of Karkat's ranting. Con-Air, Karkat thinks, is the worst movie to have ever been made on earth. He tells John this of course, in his limited grasp of the human language, and fills in the rest with Alternian. John just laughs and laughs.

 

John also has a nasty habit of trying to learn Alternian and the words sound so strange, so foreign, coming from his mouth that half the time Karkat can't even tell what he's trying to say. Karkat decides pretty quickly that he can't stomach to teach John the language of his home. It hurts a little too much.

 

It's also around this time that Karkat realizes John has been sleeping on the couch. There are blankets and pillows strewn about the living space with the television and Karkat is smart enough to put two and two together and get four. John has given and given and given to Karkat, and for a while, he's convinced the blue eyed human is going to eventually demand payment. The demand never comes.

 

They form a routine.

 

When the sun rises Karkat gets up and goes down the stairs to John. They eat and watch the television and John sits on the edge of his seat while a man tells people whether or not they are the father of certain baby humans. Karkat denies finding any joy at understanding the words or watching humans find out that they indeed are the father. Hunger eventually wins out and John makes them food and thats when the teaching continues.

 

And Karkat learns.

 

With the routine comes comfort, and sometimes it gets hard to remember he is stuck here. Sometimes he doesn't feel stuck at all. Sometimes he forgets about the ache in his chest that comes with looking out the window and up at the stars.

 

Of course, because Karkat's life is a bulge ripping nightmare, their routine is smashed to bits.

 

Karkat is ripped from sleep one morning by John shaking his shoulder wildly. Karakt blinks awake only to fly into a sitting position because John looks horrified. His blue eyes are wide and he looks like he's put his clothes on in a hurry, his shirt buttons are done up wrong and he only has one sock on. Karkat is instantly afraid that there's someone here for them, for their red blood.

 

“ _What? You okay? Hurt?_ ” Karkat asks, and he's a little ashamed at how worried for John he sounds, but he can worry about his manly pride after he's done looking for spots of candy red blood on John's clothes.

 

“ _No!”_ John says quickly, and he's gone from Karkat's grip to go grab a bag from the corner of the room. “ _School,”_ He says, looking pained, _“I forgot! I...late! I have to go!”_

 

Karkat sits, stunned, gap hinge open and his yellow eyes unblinking. John had burst into the room like he was about to be culled, because he had to leave. For human school.

 

“ _Idiot John!”_ He hisses, because his blood pusher feels a little like it's about to fly out of his chest and it's all stupid John's fault.

 

John has the decency to look sheepishly down at his feet. “ _Sorry,”_ He says, and Karkat is loathe to admit he finds his anger seeping out of his skin with a simple word.

 

“ _It fine. Go school. Idiot.”_ If the insult comes out a little bit like an endearment, Karkat finds he can blame it on being tired.

 

John smiles that stupid smile full of buck, dull teeth, and crowds into Karkat's space. John wraps his arms around Karkat and holds tight. “ _Bye.” J_ ohn says into Karkat's hair and that leaves the troll sputtering and pushing the human away. John laughs, red faced and happy. The blue eyed human leaves in a flurry of too long limbs and cascading papers.

 

Karkart is left sitting there red faced, scared of the feeling in his chest.


End file.
